140 Characters In Search Of An Author

How many was that … 35? Dang it! Now we’re up to … what? … (side note: Do ellipses count as one character or three?)

Anyway, as I was saying …

Let’s start with the news that Twitter is donating its archives to the Library of Congress. Tweets dating back to 2006 are headed to Washington, D.C., where they can be studied by researchers to determine the response to major events such as the Haiti earthquakes, the debate over health care and the latest movie in the “Twilight” series.

Knowing that your tweets over breaking up with your bff will now be safely in the hands of the federal government has to be very comforting. The Library of Congress notes, however, that only tweets meant for public viewing will be available for access in the archives. Private tweets will be restricted.

What the hell are we talking about? We don’t know, but certainly the tweet overlords are onto something big.

In numbers released Wednesday, it was revelaed that Twitter has more than 105 million registered users, and is adding 300,000 new users every day. Meanwhile, the social-networking site is fielding 600 million search queries each day and users are sending out 55 million tweets a day.

The 600 million search queries are significant because Twitter is providing a new service on its search results pages, with the introduction Tuesday of “Promoted Tweets.” Don’t get all excited, twitterheads: “Promoted Tweets” are actually advertisements, so the new service provided isn’t likely to affect your thumbs much. One of the first companies to purchase the twitvertisements is the maker of Red Bull … although you’d think Twitter would be too slow for Red Bull drinkers.

Moving on to literature, the American Library Association, the “IM” series by Lauren Myracle — which includes such titles as “ttyl,” “ttfn” and “l8r, g8r” — are the books that received the most challenges this year over their content. …. No, not because they are written in IMspeak; but because of their content, which includes teenagers using foul language, drinking and having sex.

Speaking of teenagers in love, the Royal Shakespeare Company is behind a current effort to present “Romeo & Juliet” via Twitter. Called “Such Tweet Sorrow,” characters such as julietcap16 are reducing the romance into micro-posts and … it goes without saying … without all that extraneous stuff’ ‘n’ such.